Dr Leo John De Freitas

Leo De Freitas...

Dr Leo John De Freitas is one of Britain’s leading authorities on the history of illustration.

In 1976 he went to the Royal College of Art (RCA) to research and write a history of ‘The decline of trade wood engraving in Britain 1880-1914’.
Don’t ask how this all came about – suffice it to say, that during the research and writing of two published books on the Victorian illustrators Charles Robinson and Arthur Rackham a number of intellectual bees were planted in his bonnet and the RCA gave him a home for a while to delve into the arcane world of the commercial engraver on wood.

On graduating he went to Leicester as Arts Librarian to the Polytechnic before returning to the RCA as a tutor in the Department of Cultural History. During his five years at the college he completed a published study of John Tenniel’s illustrations to the two ‘Alice’ books and researched and successfully submitted a PhD thesis on the ‘Early history of trade engraving in Britain 1700-1880’.

Since 1986 he has lectured and written on illustration and between 1986 and 2003 he was the organiser of the Victoria and Albert’s annual illustration awards.

Dr De Freitas continues to lecture and write on illustration as well as running Graphicus Touring, his own cultural venture which creates and tours exhibitions of excellence in the graphics arts.